


Some Like It Blue

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: Backstory, Fic, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-15
Updated: 2011-07-15
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:43:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crowd had gone inside and the sidewalk was relatively empty, except for a full-color poster board for the New York International Bodypainting Festival 2004. "That can't be good," muttered Mozzie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Like It Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonfly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonfly/gifts).



> Contains a small spoiler for 2.11.

Jean-Luc Bellard and his size twelve loafers were gaining on them. Mozzie skidded around a corner after Neal, feeling like his lungs were about to explode. Cold wind prickled the sweat around the hairline of his toupee.

"I thought he was supposed to be the accountant," complained Neal, throwing a worried glance back over his shoulder. "Did Marchant recruit him from the French Olympic athletics team?"

Mozzie didn't dignify that with an answer. Didn't 'cause he couldn't, but at least Neal sounded winded too—which objectively speaking was less than auspicious, since the Frenchmen in question dealt in black-market currency and Mozzie and Neal had just stolen a magnetic key from them. Marchant wouldn't think twice about garroting one or both of them to get it back or just to pass the time, and Bellard was reputedly trigger-happy. Subjectively, though, Neal's heaving chest mollified Mozzie's self-respect somewhat.

Mozzie grabbed Neal's sleeve and dragged him across the street to a crowd milling outside a hotel. Some kind of daytime event, but not too many photographers—it was perfect. Lady Luck saving their asses. A passing tourist bus even cut Bellard off and earned them a few precious seconds to regroup.

Mozzie wiped his arm across his forehead and yanked Neal into the recessed doorway of an emergency exit. "Split up!" he said. "Meet you in half an hour at the orchestra of one."

Neal nodded, and Mozzie didn't wait for more. He turned away, ripped off his purple jacket and his toupee and bundled them under the planter of a clipped spherical shrub. He slowed his pace to a gentle saunter and melted into the crowd without looking back.

Forty-five minutes later, he was sitting across from the violinist statue in Madison Square Park, shivering without his jacket and drinking a styrofoam cup of herbal tea. There was no sign of Neal. Mozzie suppressed his natural inclination to panic and started reciting Dante's Inferno in his head as a meditation exercise.

Twenty minutes after that, he threw his empty tea cup in the trash and warily retraced his steps to the hotel. The crowd had gone inside and the sidewalk was relatively empty, except for a full-color poster board for the New York International Bodypainting Festival 2004.

"That can't be good," muttered Mozzie. He stuck his head into the lobby. No sign of Bellard, no cops and no bloodstains on the carpet, but there was a man covered in painted-on iridescent blue lizard scales loitering behind a large potted fern on the far side of the room. A family group openly eyed him as they walked past to the elevators, the mother even pointing him out to the small boy, but the man ignored them. He beckoned to Mozzie.

Mozzie took a step back, intending to make his escape before he got sucked into a Bizarro world of semi-naked adults, but there was something familiar about the lizard man. Something Neal-esque.

Of course.

"Sweet merciful Plato," said Mozzie, hurrying over to the fern. "What part of 'be discreet' did you not understand?"

"I didn't want to undermine Wanda's creative vision," said Neal, with mixed chagrin and sheepishness. A painted thong was his sole scrap of clothing. "Did we lose Bellard?"

"For now," said Mozzie. "As far as I can tell." He folded his arms across his plain green t-shirt, grateful for the garments that shielded _his_ physique from every curious passing glance. "Wanda? Let me guess."

Neal's grin held a touch of self-mockery. "It wasn't like that. She's an artiste. But I did have to leave my clothes behind, including the keycard in my pants pocket. She thinks I'm taking a cigarette break."

"So go make your apologies and get your clothes," said Mozzie. "We haven't got all day. I'm meeting Signora Salinas for a game of chess in just under an hour."

Neal shook his head. "They're taking photographs."

"And even like that, Marchant could recognize you, not to mention the Feds or Wilkes or any number of other lowlifes with a score to settle." Mozzie sighed. "Okay, but I'm not going in there on my own as long as there are people with paint-brushes who might see me as a potential human canvas. I have lines and that is well beyond my comfort zone."

"Moz! The keycard," said Neal, almost a whine.

"It'll still be there in a couple of hours, once the worst is over," Mozzie told him. "It's probably safer there than it would be with us." He looked Neal over from head to foot. He made a handsome lizard, but— "You do realize that the purpose of disguise is to pass unnoticed, to cast off your identifying features and blend in?"

Neal rolled his eyes. "And I look like Nudist Smurf. I know. This wasn't exactly part of my plan."

He followed Mozzie towards the door, sparing a smile full of charm for a trio of young women, who responded with lascivious grins and shameless ogling. "It's amazing in there," Neal told them. "I'm just the tip of the iceberg."

"Some tip," said one of the women with a smirk. Another elbowed her, making her blush.

Neal waved and followed Mozzie into the street, apparently reconciled to his state of near undress.

"We'll manage," said Mozzie, mostly to himself. A cold wind made him shiver, and he deliberately didn't check to see if Neal were getting goose pimples. He retrieved his jacket from under the shrub, shook the dirt and stray cigarette butts off it and turned it inside out to hide the distinctive purple. He handed it to Neal, who slipped into it gratefully.

"Don't suppose you have any spare pants to go with that?"

Mozzie huffed and stuck his hands in his pockets. At least it was Neal and not himself who'd ended up playing the artwork. "It could be worse."

"The keycard is in the hotel, Bellard and Marchant are after us, and we only have eighteen hours to get the goods before the shipment leaves for Europe," Neal told him. "How could it be worse?"

Mozzie kept a straight face. "It could be raining."

As the words passed his lips, the first drops fell, dotting his glasses. They were soon joined by thousands of their brethren.

"Thanks for that, Moz," said Neal, sending him a withering glance through the teeming rain. The blue scales on his face and neck were already starting to run. He pulled the jacket tight across his chest and quickened his pace. "Thanks so much."


End file.
